Over 1/2 of Div. 1 schools now play their home games on infilled (yes, infilled) artificial grass surfaces. In the Big 12, OU, Iowa State and TCU play on natural grass.
The UIL will no longer schedule high school playoff games on natural grass fields. The UIL sites safety. Baylor couldn't get the UIL to return phone calls till 2004 when they installed Prestige brand (now part of Fieldturf). Today, Baylor Stadium is a Texas high school playoff mecca.
During the off season OU installed Astroturf brand on their baseball field. First I know of with artificial base paths and mound. UT's Dishe-Falk Field as been fake forever.
SI, that's just not true about UIL. UIL has nothing to do with the location, or field composition of playoff games, except for the state championship games, and they only got involved in that a little over a decade ago. UIL will even all teams in Texas to play games outside of the state. Everything about a playoff game, before the state final, is a negotiation between the two schools. The exception to that is if they teams have played in the last five years, and one of the teams lost a coin flip to determine the location of the previous game. Then the other team gets to choose the next one in that five year period.
Most coaches prefer to play their teams playoff games on artificial surfaces in case the weather gets really bad. They want to have a reasonable facsimile of a football game. Real grass fields tend to be already pretty torn up by mid November and later.
As for K2C's original questions, Astroturf was installed in the Astrodome in 1965. The intent was to have the roof of the dome have panels in it, so that sunlight could come through and grow grass. But the grass didn't grow very well, and the panels made seeing fly balls, a ridiculously hard task. So on short notice, they allowed Monsanto to install their new plastic grass.
Not sure, but I don't think OU ever had true Astroturf. I remember the talk in 1970 that we were going to install artificial turf and a lot of us wondered if you could use plastic grass outside. The plastic installed on Owen Field was called Tartan Turf. It was very different from Astroturf.
Astroturf was like blades of plastic grass. Not long after the original, rubber pads were installed under whatever green surface was being played on. But the original in the Dome had no pad. Because the longer plastic grass blades would go horizontal after being played on and rained on and other factors, the Astroturf after time would get really slick. It was horrible to play on. One of the reasons OUr wishbone didn't work so well against Bama in the 1970 Astro Bluebonnet Bowl was because of the slickness of the field.
OU's tartan turf had little tiny fibers just meshed together, more like a carpet than fake grass. It was installed at OU in 1970, during the summer. A dozen players' summer jobs were doing the installation. It was really hot work, as you might suspect.
We had to find different shoes to wear on it. Ironically, they ended up choosing a Spot Bilt shoe that had not cleats at all, and it was fine as long as the carpet was dry. If you want a whole game tape of the GOTC against Nebraska in 71, at the end of the game, OUr players are trying to switch shoes to short, metal tipped cleats, because OUr turf shoes didn't work when it was wet. And OUr turf shoes weren't great on Astroturf, especially old Astroturf. But they made us really quick on Tartan Turf. Especially that Pruitt kid.
The first time I ever heard the phrase "turf toe," came from an injury to Roy Bell in 1970, his junior year. People didn't understand how impairing that could be at the time. Roy was a very good college running back, but with his toe injury, he wasn't very effective.
You asked about the impact of Astroturf, meaning all artificial surfaces. One of the biggest impacts have been toe injuries. And when you make the game faster, it increases the force of collisions. And that increases injuries. But playing on a surface where the players can get good footing in bad weather, likely helps reduce injuries at least a little.
I know that OU believes the real grass is better for reducing player injuries, and they spent a bunch of money on a drainage system, so the the real grass could be a reasonable track when it's raining hard, but a softer place to land.
Not sure, but I suspect most players like playing on a good grass surface, a lot more than plastic.
